That's a lot of hyphens in one paragraph, I know. But Episode 1 of "Real World: Skeletons" — the 30th season of this grandfather of TV reality series — merits the kind of exasperation that can be expressed only in compound words. Culled from the subset of young people a little too fond of insisting they are "crazy," the 20-something housemates treated to life in a swanky West Loop loft in exchange for constant camera surveillance become that awful that quickly.

Things settle down later in the series, executive producer Jon Murray promised in an interview, as the young adults get to know one another better and the season's twist kicks in. The "skeletons" in the title refers to people from the housemates' past — ex-lovers, wronged friends, wayward parents, co-workers — brought in to surprise them.

But the premiere plays out like a "Jerry Springer" episode amped up by hard liquor and audience expectations. "Look at me 'cause I'm the best thing you're ever going to see," says Violetta Milerman, a Florida college student, to one of the male housemates. Then, before she walks off to stir up some trouble between two people, she again sounds like she's repeating a line she heard on some other reality show: "You want to see some drama?"

As one of the participants, the Kansas City, Mo., bartender Sylvia Elsrode, eloquently sums it up, "Pride, dignity, class: gone."

MTV

The cast of "Real World: Skeletons," filmed in Chicago.

The cast of "Real World: Skeletons," filmed in Chicago. (MTV)

Sylvia — the show uses only first names — says, quaintly, "Jiminy Crickets" at one point. That, of course, is not long before a scene in which housemate Bruno Bettencourt, from East Providence, R.I., is shown unbuckling his pants for her after a make-out session in the house's "confessional" room, set up for participants to sit down and talk directly to the camera.

This particular confession might go something like this: Forgive me, father, for I have given the producers and network exactly what they want.

You can think of "The Real World," which began in 1992 (some years had more than one season), as the show that killed music videos on MTV. Or you can think of it as the series that proved cheap programming about real people could give networks an easy ratings jolt. Many real housewives have real worlders to thank — or blame.

Either way, it's been influential. Credit goes to the series for showing diverse casts, including ahead-of-its-time showcasing of gay issues. It's featured a wide variety of cities: Chicago is one of only four it's been back to twice, Murray said, referring to a season taped in 2001 in Wicker Park. And it's been better made, with more potential for depth, than most reality shows, crafting a run of a dozen or so one-hour episodes after focusing its cameras for up to four months; many of this series' peers are made from much shorter bursts of observation.

Demerits go to "The Real World" for rewarding those who act out with screen time, which surely sacrifices some of the potential for deeper storytelling, and for teaching people that going on camera in a reality show demands outrageous behavior, instantly.

One person's fun, of course, is another's horrified morning after. Coming back to the series after not watching it for about a decade, I couldn't help but be struck by how much sooner the cast members seem to start with what used to be called — in an era in which "Jiminy Crickets" was a common expletive — "high jinks."

"I think, to some extent, young people are much more brazen in terms of the way they want to live their lives," said Murray. "Obviously since we started this show in 1992, young people have become incredibly comfortable in front of cameras. They really don't edit themselves the way they might have. They're just so used to leading their lives and sharing them with other people. They're just very honest and unapologetic about who they are."

And Murray has his own confessional: "This particular group, we went for a group that was a little more blue collar, a group that didn't have a lot on the line. You know, they weren't worried that the bar association wouldn't let them in. So they didn't really edit themselves. As a producer of reality TV, you always want people that aren't going to edit themselves."

Bettencourt, 25, who works for his father's construction company, backed up this view in a phone interview. "I never hyped something up or did something extra knowing a camera was on me," he said. "I don't hold back. If I feel a certain way, I'm going to act on it."

Bettencourt hadn't yet seen any of the episodes, to see how the producers would edit him into a character. "It could play a couple of ways," he said. "I could be, like, the sweet one, or I could be the (expletive). I'm always true to who I am."

Chicago looks great in the series, as per usual. The apartment was kitty-corner from Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios in the West Loop, Murray said, on a corner of Randolph Street. Venues visited in the first episode included the clubs Packing House and Spybar and a small grocery store. Parents of young people on their own in the city will be relieved to hear that no locals embarrass themselves in the episode.

The Tilt leaning-windows attraction at the John Hancock Center is featured in opening credits along with The Bean. In the show proper, there are lots of shots of the skyline, the river and of a new signature feature, apparently, Divvy bikes.

"There's a wonderful texture to the city," Murray said. "And then the folks that run your mass transit are really easy to work with. There are a lot of cities that are not."

But the essence of "Real World" seasons is always the people in the house. On hand with Sylvia, Bruno and Violetta are two people whose very essence seems to be flirtation: Tony, an ever-smiling ladies man from Louisiana, and Madison, a helium-voiced blonde woman from Texas. Not surprisingly, their lips lock very early on. "It just happened like a magnet on a refrigerator: Boom!" Tony says.

Rounding out the cast are Nicole, a brash lesbian from Staten Island, N.Y., and Jason, the one who seems to have the most steadiness and dignity, at least in the early going. He's a North Carolinian who, we will learn, was raised by a single mom.

Murray pledged that Jason's story, in particular, will get especially rich, because one of the skeletons in his past, whom the producers worked to find, is the father Jason never knew.

But even before that story is introduced, Jason seems slightly less intent than the others on telling the world he's "crazy." What, you wonder, is he doing in this show?